Taxation & Regulation News South Africa

Cape Town says Sanral is misleading the public

The City of Cape Town has accused the South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) of "peddling fallacies" about the proposed tolling of the N1-N2 Winelands highway, deepening their public spat.
Cape Town Mayoral Committee Member for Transport Brett Herron says the city did not agree to withhold details of tariffs or what the toll operator stood to earn from the Winelands project. Image:
Cape Town Mayoral Committee Member for Transport Brett Herron says the city did not agree to withhold details of tariffs or what the toll operator stood to earn from the Winelands project. Image: Brett Herron

Cape Town Mayoral Committee Member for Transport Brett Herron said the city had never agreed to withhold from the public information such as toll tariffs and revenue that would be earned by the operator of the proposed highway toll project.

He said Sanral was misleading the public about the actual cost of the project. Sanral and the Democratic Alliance-led city of Cape Town have been at loggerheads over highway tolling. The city would oppose the project with "all available resources".

Last week, Sanral's Chief Executive Nazir Alli accused the city council of reneging on an undertaking to keep information confidential until the tender was awarded.

The High Court in Cape Town this month heard an in-camera application by the agency and the preferred bidder for the project, the Protea Parkways Consortium, to deny public access to supplementary documents.

Sanral agreed to release some documents

However, the consortium later agreed to allow an edited version of tender documents to be made publicly available. Sanral, however, opposed this.

Herron said last week that the city's attorneys had asked Sanral whether Alli was misquoted when he said the city had reneged on a confidentiality undertaking. Herron said the public had a right to know the facts about the proposed toll project, and that court papers should be filed openly.

Last year, the High Court granted the city an interim interdict preventing Sanral from going ahead with the project. The relief was granted pending the court's review of Sanral's decision to implement the project.

Pointing to Sanral's "secrecy application", Herron said until the application was determined, the city may not make its supplementary founding papers public. He accused Sanral of taking advantage of this position.

Sanral spokesman Vusi Mona said Sanral's allocation from the fiscus was about R10bn a year for the entire national road network and the N1-N2 Winelands project required close to that amount.

Herron said: "All the city may say publicly at this stage is Mona's claim that the project will cost about R10bn is false."

Source: Business Day via I-Net Bridge

Source: I-Net Bridge

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